davebender
1st Lieutenant
Because this will be a BMW engine, superceding the obsolete BMW VI V-12 engine. That way each of the 3 primiary German engine manufacturers (DB, Junkers, BMW) each have an iron in the fire.
Allison V-1710 vs. H.S. 12: another what if
- Thread starter Clay_Allison
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Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 24, 2008
Why wouldn't BMW just build Db-601s?
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- #43
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 24, 2008
Speaking of this, why didn't the Army issue a requirement for a V-Engine monoplane sooner? Maybe have Curtiss try a "Hawk Monoplane" (imagine the P-6 with one wing). A clean, no-frills, low-frontal-area plane rather than that horrific-looking P-26.
Shortround6
Major General
There was a BMW 116 engine but at 20.8 liters it was about the size and power of the Jumo 210.
While having 3 different v-12 engines might be interesting for us know to discuss, it would only have been an unneeded complication for the Germans in in WW II.
Shortround6
Major General
They tried, the results make the P-26 look good.
File:Boeing XP-9.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File:Curtiss XP-31.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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- #46
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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They tried, the results make the P-26 look good.
File:Boeing XP-9.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
File:Curtiss XP-31.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The XP-31 would have been pretty fast with 30% more horsepower.
Well, maybe. Curtiss designs didn't seem to be very good in that era.
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davebender
1st Lieutenant
Generally speaking it's more profitable to build your own design then to license build a design owned by someone else. Why do you think they spent a massive amount of R&D to finally produce the BMW801 radial engine? I suspect the V-1710 design and tooling could be purchased for a lot less then BMW801 development costs.
From the RLM point of view...
The DB600 series was accepted during 1936 and began production in 1937 (after the new factory was built). They don't have a crystal ball telling them this will be a superb engine capable of eventually producing 1,800 hp. That's why they also purchased the Jumo211 series, which offered performance slightly inferior to the DB601. For the same reason RLM will hedge their bets by purchasing V-12 engines from BMW if that company has something roughly comparable to the DB601 and Jumo211.
From the RLM point of view...
The DB600 series was accepted during 1936 and began production in 1937 (after the new factory was built). They don't have a crystal ball telling them this will be a superb engine capable of eventually producing 1,800 hp. That's why they also purchased the Jumo211 series, which offered performance slightly inferior to the DB601. For the same reason RLM will hedge their bets by purchasing V-12 engines from BMW if that company has something roughly comparable to the DB601 and Jumo211.
Shortround6
Major General
Which is it? More profitable to design and build their own radial engine or cheaper to to license the Allison?
There is no Allison tooling to speak of before 1939. Production tooling would have to be purchased/made for any engine BMW made in large (thousands) numbers.
And what do you get in the end? The Allison could not do the job the BMW 801 did. While you might be able to over boost the Allison ( and which Allison would the Germans be getting?) for short periods of time to power levels close to the 801 the Allison is not going to be able to generate the cruise power levels for several hours on end that would be needed to power bombers or large night fighters.
Just what are the benefits of introducing another engine into the supply/training system that doesn't do anything the existing engines do?
Acc. to wikipedia the BMW 801 was planned as an engine for transports and bombers. And like Dave said, in 1936 the RLM does not know if the DB 601 will be a success or not. It does not hurt to look for a backup, just like it does not hurt Allison to try to sell the V-1710 to other nations. The worst thing that could happen is no orders, which is not worse than the OTL situation of Allison.
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- #50
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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What does the V-1710 have that the Jumo 211 doesn't have? Predicting that the 211 will be a success after the relative success of the 210 is no stretch.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
It will be OWNED by BMW. Hence BMW has a chance to make serious money selling engines to RLM.
The BMW V-1710 will develop differently then the historical engine. For starters it will get a BMW supercharger and fuel injection. After that it become more difficult to predict.
Junkers sold something like 68,000 Jumo211 engines to the Luftwaffe even though it was inferior to the DB601/605 series. If BMW gets engine contracts anywhere near that big they may forget all about developing a radial engine. Just milk the V-1710 cash cow for all it's worth.
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- #52
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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Allison developed the V-1710 on the government dime. Even though the government had not paid Allison that dime, the contract would stand and they would not let their only V-Engine patent be sold overseas. If they do that we are probably well into 1943 with an R-1830 powered P-40 (a P-36 on steroids). Maybe if the Allison money had been poured into P&W we would have a marure R-2000 powered P-40 and F4F in 1942 developing 1400 horses in the same installation as the 1830 and Aux-Supercharged, but maybe not. Either way I doubt the government would want to take the risk.
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- #53
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 24, 2008
Maybe Fokker could have produced a simple, clean, V-Engine Monoplane, looking like a single-wing Fokker D.XVII, powered by the V-1710. 2 .50 caliber MGs on the manifold would be sufficient armament. They had an factory in America and really good experience building combat aircraft experience from WWI.
150 of these instead of the wretched peashooters powered by 900 horsepower Allisons (derated to pass the 150 hour torture test) would give the Allison company a chance to have planes in the air to make improvements on the engines through experience and would give the US a very good aircraft in the 1930s. It might well have spurred the development of the Hurricane and been a match for Dewoitine D.500s, I-16s, Ki-27 Nates, and Jumo 210 powered Bf-109s.
It probably could have been a popular export (even with engines derated below maximum) during the mid 1930s.
I don't think you can have development without production. If Allison had a working factory producing real working engines from 1932-1942 and was getting real feedback from users of same, they might not have fallen so far behind RR and the Merlin.
Shortround6
Major General
No, it would be LICENSED to BMW with license fees going to Allison. as far as BMW making serious money see following.
We can predict a few things right of the bat.
1. BMW will have to convert the engine to metric dimensions. All drawings redone and drawings altered to accommodate metric parts (nuts, bolts, threads, and any/all bought in parts at a minimum).
2. it will be a bomber engine. No through the hub gun without extensive redesign.
3. Germans favored inverted V engines for improved view. Again bomber engine only unless extensive redesign.
4. Reduction gear on early models ("C"/long nose) was a bad design. BMW has to redo the reduction gear, not a real big deal but one more expense.
5. Allison needed more manifold pressure than the German engines to get equal HP. IF available German fuel limits the boost used there is very little BMW can do about it.
6. Fuel injection--- while fuel injection offers freedom from intake icing problems, better economy, and more uniform mixture to the cylinders it does not offer intake charge cooling which allows slightly higher boost, see #5. there are a few other pros and cons.
7. Do you have any evidence that a 1936-39 BMW supercharger is any better than the Allison supercharger of the time?
I may think of more latter
1. Jumo was inferior HOW? Yes the cooling issue on the earlier models kept it from being a good fighter engine but unless we can come up with time to over haul figures, maintenance hours between over hauls, and fuel economy figures it may be hard to get a good picture of the real merits of the different engines aside from higher altitude performance.
2. As far as BMW forgetting about the radial, Probably the best thing that could happen for the Allied war effort. What you are proposing is replacing a 41.7 liter engine with a 28 liter engine. Imagine the U.S. trying to re-engine all the planes that used the R-2600 with Allisons.
While the smaller liquid cooled engine can come close to equaling a larger air cooled engine in peak power (1-5 min) the difference becomes much larger and in the radials favor when we are talking about steady state climb or high speed cruise.
Of course this would force the RLM to produce the DB 603 sooner as they have no other engine close to production that they can use in that power class.
All in all, not much of a cash cow.
Shortround6
Major General
The P-26 wasn't really a bad plane for it's time. It's big problem was a lack of development potential. It was a low risk airplane. The Wasp engine was a well proven product and would offer no surprises (even if it offered little growth), likewise the guns, while not as innovative as the 20mm on the Dewoitine we also likely to offer little trouble. It did introduce landing flaps to US fighter pilots
THE US's problem, in middle of the great depression, was in not replacing it soon enough. The 50 P-30s showed where some of the Army's thinking was going. A smaller single seat version with your de-rated Allison might have been interesting ( and they could always stick a R&W or Wright engine on it for export)
Allison was actually ahead of the Merlin in 1936, it was after that that things slid. A contract for a few hundred Allison powered P-36s PLACED in 1937 might have helped things out. Given the 1 to 2 year time period between placing an order and getting planes into squadron service.
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- #56
Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 24, 2008
The P-26 wasn't really a bad plane for it's time. It's big problem was a lack of development potential. It was a low risk airplane. The Wasp engine was a well proven product and would offer no surprises (even if it offered little growth), likewise the guns, while not as innovative as the 20mm on the Dewoitine we also likely to offer little trouble. It did introduce landing flaps to US fighter pilots
THE US's problem, in middle of the great depression, was in not replacing it soon enough. The 50 P-30s showed where some of the Army's thinking was going. A smaller single seat version with your de-rated Allison might have been interesting ( and they could always stick a R&W or Wright engine on it for export)
Allison was actually ahead of the Merlin in 1936, it was after that that things slid. A contract for a few hundred Allison powered P-36s PLACED in 1937 might have helped things out. Given the 1 to 2 year time period between placing an order and getting planes into squadron service.
I'm a big fan of "if it looks right it's right" and I can't think of many planes that looked more like an insult to aerodynamics than the P-26.
The P-30 looked like a real plane, a scaled down single seat version would be the right way to go.
Follow that with a P-36 powered by the Allison from the beginning and the engine might have matured by 1942.
Shortround6
Major General
Might I suggest looking at some French aircraft of the 20's and 30's
And the P-26 was only about 10-11 years newer than this.
Caproni Ca.60 Noviplano - passenger
And this was considered the height of streamlining in 1932
http://members.tripod.com/Airfields_freeman/MA/GeeBee_R-2replica_96.jpg
Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
Allison developed the V-1710 on their own dime.
There were other, equally powerful forces at work that determined the fate of the US liquid-cooled powerplant:
George Lewis, Director of Aeronautical Engineering at NACA took a trip to Germany in 1936 and this was NACA's first intimation that their Langley laboratory might be inadequate for the nation's future research needs.
In response to Lewis's report, NACA set up a special committee under General Oscar Westover, then Chief of the Army Air Corps. It took three years for the committee to address the question of the relation of NACA to defence of the US in the event of war.
Meanwhile, military aeronautical technology in Germany was rapidly overtaking that of the US. As early as 1937 John Jay Ide, NACA's technical assistant in Europe, warned of the results of German advances. He reported that Germany was producing extraordinary aeroplanes and powerplants that had enabled them, with their ally Italy, to set a 'holocaust of records' (an unfortunate term with hindsight). Ide noted that in the development of aircraft powerplants, there had been no spectacular breakthroughs. Steady incremental improvements were nevertheless pushing European powerplant development to new heights. Both England and Germany had developed liquid-cooled powerplants with two-speed superchargers to power fighter aircraft.
By 1939 Ide had concluded that, so great was the German emphasis on the development of new technology, the next war would be a 'war of workshops'. The country able to develop the most advanced aircraft would have a strategic advantage. Ide emphasized that for the Europeans it was speed above all that was important. The Germans had aeroplanes that could reach speeds of over 400mph. The fastest planes, he noted, all had liquid-cooled powerplants.
By 1939, with Europe converging inexorably on war, Charles Lindbergh had sensed the situation to be so serious, he headed home, meeting Hap Arnold straight off his ship. Arnold recalled it was the first useful information they had received on the Luftwaffe. Lindbergh subsequently chaired a Special Committee on Aeronautical Research Facilities, approving a second research centre (what would become Ames Aeronautical Research Facility in Sunnyvale, Calif) and critically:
Lindbergh was convinced that the development of liquid-cooled engines was not receiving sufficient attention in the US. Other high-level aviation experts shared his view. The periodical Science warned that the nation needed research facilities above all because of 'the superiority of foreign liquid-cooled engines'
The recognition of the gravity of the powerplant situation coincided with the strengthening of the leadership of NACA. The same day that Lindbergh made his recommendations, NACA elected Vannevar Bush to take charge of forging a wartime research program. A former Dean of Engineering and Vice President at MIT, Bush appreciated the value of research. He greatly admired NACA and looked upon its organization as a model for the mobilization of science. Known as both a scientist and a hard-headed practical engineer, he considered the best engineering to be applied science. For him, NACA exemplified this ideal.
The US had decided in the early 30s not to depend solely on radials, despite their commercial dominance but it was the same commercial dominance that saw only the V-1710 close to production in 1940.
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Colin1
Senior Master Sergeant
This takes some beating
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Shortround6
Major General
The French managed it and by a wide margin.
They not only insulted aerodynamics, they tried to bludgeon it out of existence with some of the ugliest aircraft aircraft ever built whose main styling cues seem to be from medieval castles.
Bleriot 127 - bomber, reconnaissance
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Bloch_MB-200.gif
Breguet 462 - bomber
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/bww1/f220/f220-4.jpg
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Dice/2996/hanriot-h-115.jpg
http://www.aviastar.org/pictures/france/liore_20.jpg
Other countries may have entries in the "UGLY SWEEPSTAKES" But the mid 20s - mid 30s the French, if not out right winners, seemed to be filling out a race card all by themselves.
http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/Amiot 143.jpg
http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/aeroscope/images/POTEZ/potez54.jpg
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/spyww2/nc510/nc510-2.jpg
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